Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, pt. 5
A Book-by-book Reading Guide
We’ve reached the end of the journey and the culmination of Lady’s Philosophy’s consolation. And yet book 5 of The Consolation of Philosophy is perhaps the most dense and difficult part of the argument. It is here that Boethius struggles to understand his human experience of chance, freedom, and temporality against the background of divine knowledge, providence, and eternity.
Some of the most essential ideas of book 5 are about the relationship between time and eternity, most especially has those concepts bear on issues of freedom and providence. If God in God’s eternity providentially orders all things before they happen on earth, how can human beings be free? To answer these questions, Lady Philosophy has to help Boethius better understand what it means when we speak of God’s eternity and God’s providence. Though this comes up over the course of book 5, I find it most helpful for first time readers of Boethius to have at least a rough idea of these concepts before tackling the argument itself. So to that end…
Eternity according to Lady Philosophy is not the same thing as God being everlasting, that is, as “living forever.” Eternity, rather, is God’s immediate presence of all of time simultaneously (or, if you prefer, all of time’s presence to God). Augustine was a major Christian theorist of this way of thinking about time and eternity. God sees and knows all things, all of time, in God’s “eternal now.” In other words, God does not experience time as a sequence of temporally unfolding events like we as humans do but rather all of time is eternally present to God in the immediacy of God’s knowledge.
God’s providence, then, is the expression of God’s eternal knowledge of all things. But what is key for Boethius’ argument is that God eternally knows things as the type of creature they are. Centuries later St. Thomas Aquinas will talk about creatures as “necessary” or “contingent.” Human beings are the later: we act freely rather than by necessity. Our freedom and contingency and change are all known perfectly within the eternal simplicity of the divine mind. Thus God’s providence and human freedom are not in competition with each other, the more of one requiring there be less of the other. No, God knows us perfectly as the creatures we are, not imposing necessity on us through his eternal knowledge, but rather knowing us perfectly within our freedom and contingency.
"Free will must be retained, in order to make human beings accountable for their actions and not merely puppets of God." —Lady Philosophy
Why this bizarre metaphysical emphasis in the final book of the Consolation? I think it is to ground the power of Lady Philosophy’s final instruction. If we are free, we can use our freedom well by aligning with the divine will and so drawing close to God; or we can use it poorly by moving away from God and toward the rule of Fate. But because we are free we have the power to change, to abandon the harlot song of the Muses of despair from book 1, and instead hear the music of Lady Philosophy’s wisdom which sings to us the music of eternity. How do we do that? By becoming virtuous and by practicing justice. For it is through the exercise of human freedom that we can attune ourselves—and our world—to the harmony of God’s eternal music in all its beauty and goodness.
An Outline of Book 5:
Book 5 is concerned with the relationship between Providence and free will and concludes with a substantial discussion of the relation of time and eternity.
This conversation is in response to Boethius’ question about the possibility of chance.
Philosophy says that there is no chance if we understand it as something occurring without cause. “Nothing comes from nothing.” (5.1.9).
She further defines chance as an unexpected outcome, deriving from confluent causes (5.1.18). It must be understood as descending still from Providence.
Boethius challenges Philosophy here: with this kind of divine order, can there be any freedom for independent thought (5.2.1)?
Philosophy insists that there cannot be a rational nature without freedom in its possession (5.2.4).
Human souls are the most free in contemplation and less free the further they are from that contemplation until they are captives of their liberty (5.2.10) (They are closer to Fate than to Providence).
Boethius finds the first point perplexing. He asks about divine knowledge (5.3.1). He sees foreknowledge and freedom as incommensurate.
His immediate sense means that God’s foreknowledge requires that things happen of necessity (5.3.9).
The alternatives are that God’s knowledge isn’t perfect, but rather mere opinion, or things are by nature indefinite.
Boethius believes that this puts justice into an intractable problem: without freedom, there can be no just reward or punishment (5.3.29ff).
Even worse, though, is that there is no reason to hope or to pray for deliverance—and thus no way to be united with God (5.3.33).
Philosophy says in response that this complaint is based on a misunderstanding of the simplicity of the divine mind (5.4.2).
Human reason is productive and not just receptive (Stoicism). In this way, it can image or participate in the divine mind; this mind sees all, simplistically and comprehensively. She identifies analogies in the human mind too (5.4).
She then offers a helpful summary of Boethius’ complaint (5.5) before insisting that knowledge hinges on the knower rather than the known. We must consider divine knowledge with this in mind. (5.5.12)
The final section of Consolation explores the nature of divine knowledge and its consequences for life in time and history:
She first defines eternity as “a possession of life, simultaneously entire and perfect, which has no end” (5.6.4).
“Temporality” names the inability to embrace the entire space of its own life simultaneously.
Even if a temporal thing has no beginning or end (“everlasting”) it still isn’t eternal because it is still extended through time (5.6.11).
“God is eternal but the world is perpetual” (5.6.14).
God’s eternal now is not a foreknowledge of what is to come but a knowledge of a never-failing present (5.6.17).
It is rightly called “Providence” (“looking out”) rather than “Previdence” (foresight).
Philosophy reminds Boethius that human looking out doesn’t impose necessity (5.6.19)
Philosophy then distinguishes between two types of necessity:
1) Simple necessity: all humans are mortal;
2) Conditional: a man is walking if you know he is walking
So things are necessary as God sees it as a present thing even if that thing is not necessary by nature.
So, independent (free) will can coexist with divine Providence.
God’s necessary knowledge embraces human contingency and change within its simplicity.
Thus justice is properly distributed and prayer rightly offered.
Humans freely choose to grow in virtue and vice.
Philosophy ends with an injunction for life on earth: to attain virtue and the necessity of free righteousness (justice), all before the eyes of God.
Reading Questions for Book 5:
1. Why does the Consolation end with an extended discussion of providence, free will, and the relation between time and eternity? What does this have to do with the Consolation?
2. Can God’s providential ordering of creation allow for chance or the exercise of freedom?
3. What does it mean to call God “eternal”? What does it mean to call ourselves “temporal”?
4. Why would the discussion of eternity, time, providence, and free will finally end with a turn to prayer and an exhortation to grow in virtue and justice?
5. How does the final poem revisit and redirect the entire project of the Consolation?
6. How should we assess the Consolation? Where did it stretch us in good ways, hard ways, generative ways? Where do you think it falls short?